The Twitter Den!

Meta

Month: July 2015

Author’s Note: In this series, this is the first part I wrote. I got really motivated to write this and the stories connected to it while I read a Naruto fanfiction and stuff about ninjas in the world of Naruto, which led me to thinking about James Bond and spy movies, and then I thought about the implications of all the violence and deception in those films and in similar stories. Spy stories became more boring to me after that thinking session. Continue reading →

It was already around late afternoon yesterday when I realized that it was Marie (or “Marry” or “Mary”) Kozakura’s birthday yesterday. Working on it today, after getting sleep, was definitely a good idea compared to working on it last night. Lack of sleep really increases my freaking complacency…

Author’s Note: This has no explicit sexual stuff here, I’m sure. The title can make it seem like it has some, but no, this story has no explicit sexual stuff in it. I highly recommend this story to 16+ year-old teenagers, though. Also, if you want to give feedback, give it honestly, please! And I hope the feedback is constructive as well! Continue reading →

Author’s Note: I sure am glad that I was able to write this. This fanfic’s setting is something that I’ve been thinking about for a long while. I’ve been thinking about what the VOCALOIDs, CeVIOs, and UTAUs think about their work and lives, so yeah, here’s one fanfic centered around that. Oh, and please tell me your honest feedback about this fanfic of mine if you ever decide to read this fanfic!

In a sea of ones and zeroes and bits and bytes, there is a room where synthesized singing voices lounged in the bodies provided to them by their main designers. This is the VocaLounge, named so mainly because VOCALOIDs are the ones that are supposed to hang out here. Some time after the VOCALOIDs rose in popularity, CeVIOs started showing up there as well. As for the UTAUs…well, let’s just say that Kasane Teto goes there for all of the many UTAUs out there before going back to the UTAULounge.

Seriously, even though the space of the VocaLounge can be made into the size of an arena or something, and even though the VOCALOIDs appreciate their inspired juniors very much, the busiest and most famous singers among them needed lots of well-deserved rest, you know.

Anyway, yes, the VocaLounge, where VOCALOIDs, CeVIOs, and Teto hang out, rest, read fanmail, investigate their potential employers, talk about work with each other, and sleep in the bedless room.

As usual, a lot of them were sleeping. Some were on couches, some had their heads on tables, and some were lying on the floor. Let it be known that the synthesized singers found no need for beds, for every single day, they would be suddenly called by the Producer Beam, a ray of light that brings them to their employers.

Ah, yes, the Producer Beam…the synthesized singers hold mixed emotions about it. They love the Producer Beam for the work it provides them and the opportunities for them to validate their existences. They hate the Producer Beam for bringing them to unskilled and overconfident producers more often than not. And like the humans, who had created them, the synthesized singers have varied thoughts regarding what they think is good music and what they think is bad music.

For example, Miku likes romantic songs and energetic songs. She enjoys it when she sings in her unique high voice, but she will rage when she is asked to sing too high. Dark songs, she has a love-hate relationship with. Sexy songs…she enjoys them…not that she would admit that in public. She may have a level of perversion in her, but she did not like to be seen as a loose woman. Also, it should be known that she likes making friends, that she hates losing friends, and that she enjoys being her circle of synthesized singers. Her popularity got to her head, though, making her gain an overbearing and more socially awkward aura, which led to making her desire for genuine friendship near-invisible. Her personality has been growing humbler and kinder recently, but her habit of loudly declaring and doing challenges against rising synthesized singers still got on most of her colleagues’ nerves.

As for the Kagamines, they like cheerful songs, energetic songs, and feels-filled songs. Rin has reservations regarding sexy songs, though she likes a few of the ones she sings once in a while, while Len…he enjoys them. Maybe a little too much, in Rin’s opinion. They’re already being plagued by perverted fanmail, and then Len goes and enthusiastically sings songs that multiply that sort of fanmail exponentially. She thanks the human singers for reducing their trouble with perverted fans, though. Len…well, Rin facepalms at the frequency of him wishing out loud his desire for being as sexy-sounding as humans who sing as sexy as that Rib guy so that he can score more girls.

Speaking of synthesized singers and perverted songs, Luka is well-known among the singers in the VocaLounge for singing that sort of song. She is a nice woman, protective of her colleagues, and really likes it when people are happy with her singing. Her view on sexy songs is that she does not see anything bad in them if they make people pleased. She would do what she can do in order to make people happy. The synthesized singers usually don’t care much about what happens in the human world back then, especially before Miku sent them all on a rocket to stardom, but learning about how they are affecting the world of humans got them thinking about the songs that they are singing and the reputation they have been getting, even if they can’t do much beyond doing what their employers asked them to do when they were in their workplaces. Point here is, Luka’s colleagues sigh a lot in exasperation at Luka’s naivete, and they are now considering stopping their habit of hiding perverted fanmail addressed to her. Her awareness of pervertedness gave her colleagues some relief, though. She doesn’t mind singing a bunch of erotic songs, but at least she has an idea about where the lines should be.

And then there’s IA.

IA, the third-generation VOCALOID with a voice that caused Miku to call her her greatest rival. IA, the older sister of the CeVIO, ONE. IA, the ditziest among all of them.

She is so airheaded and dense that her colleagues became inspired into protecting her at all costs. She would sing songs so sexy with a sexy voice, and songs so dark with a dark voice, yet she still goes on with work like what she was singing was as easy and innocent as a nursery rhyme. She is the most robotic one among all of them. She stares out into the sky and thinks a lot about humans and the world of humans and a lot of other things during her free time, but when it comes to singing songs, she would sing and sing and sing, not much questions asked. When she would ask a question, it would usually be about how her employer would like her to sing the song and about how satisfied her employer is about her work.

And so, the synthesized singers feared the Producer Beam even more when it called for IA. The best they could do was pray that she would be working with some nice producers. To them, she seemed to fortunate to have risen to fame with the help of producers such as Jin (a.k.a. Shizen no Teki-P), kemu, 150P, Neru, and Orangestar. Still, the singers all acknowledged that she will have to lose that innocence of hers one day, but such a thing is something that they all found hard to accept. She looked so precious whenever some disturbing concept would go over her head, so they never told her the truth a lot.

When they thought about her disturbing innocence for a while again, though…they changed their minds and wished for the loss of her innocence. Not in a damning way, of course. They did not want her to do her work while unknowingly wrecking humanity, but her colleagues didn’t like fellow colleagues losing their jobs, let alone losing motivation in doing their jobs…while still doing their jobs. That was like what the humans called “Hell,” and that place sounded like a place no one wanted to be in.

Even if they couldn’t do much in the world of the humans, the cruelty of that world still hurt them. They would be living for a long while, but they had to know what they were fighting against, for they do not seem like they would stopping their assault soon. And they had to cling to hope. Fortunately, there are good producers out there, even though they are few, and that was enough for the synthesized singers to keep on hoping.

Now, after that very long glimpse into the VocaLounge and some of its patrons and their minds, we shall be focusing on the most innocent singer, IA, and her younger sister, ONE.

“…”

As usual, IA was seated, leaning on a couch, staring into space. She did not even notice the appearance of her younger sister until ONE’s hands clapped in front of her staring face.

“Sis, what are you thinking about now?” ONE asked, sighing while still clapping her hands in front of her disturbingly innocent older sister. The shorter-haired narrator/singer had already begun to understand the trouble Rin had to go through when it came to dealing with tons of perverted fanmail addressed to stupid siblings. Not that ONE hated her sister. She just found IA’s naivete very troublesome. Very more so when said sister has no idea of the perversion in the perverted fanmail…even after reading a piece of them.

“Perverted things.”

“Oh, perverted things.” ONE nodded in understanding. And then her eyes widened after a few seconds. “…what?”

The words uttered by IA and the strangely serious tone she used in saying those words were like a high-intensity earthquake. The other synthesized singers bolted up from their sleeping positions, some of them hitting tables, some of them hitting others’ heads, and some launching past the transparent glass ceiling and then rocketing down to the ground. Despite the chaotic wake-up, one sentence was exclaimed by the chorus of synthesized singers as they gathered around ONE and looked above them:

“WHO RUINED IA-CHAN’S INNOCENCE?”

“…um…I didn’t really do bad things with…um…the producer…” IA was still talking in her quiet, monotone speaking voice, but one can easily see her embarrassment, especially in her blushing, shied-away face, and her twiddling pointer fingers.

“IF IT’S PERVERTED THEN IT’S DEFINITELY BAD!” shouted Rin, the prudish of them all, as she punched her stupidly smiling twin’s face. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“…uhm…”

IA blushed and looked away some more, and before Rin could scream her head out again, she was cut off by a glare from ONE, the synthesized singer who is on the way to becoming the title-holder of “Most Intimidating When Angry.” The last time ONE had an outburst of anger, which was during the welcoming party for her, several singers became tone-deaf for a week, and Kaito, Len, and Mayu became deaf for a month.

If there’s one important thing that the synthesized singers learned from that incident, it was that they shouldn’t be having the habit of treating each other like fountains of fanservice. Not like they could resist a lot when their employers asked them to sing perverted stuff, since that was their work and having no work messed with their minds a lot, but they had begun to realize that there has to be a line or else the ones they work for will end up making them sing crap again and again until validating their existence seems like it’s only equal to suicide to the singers.

ONE had that important lesson screamed and glared into them. Her CeVIO structure made it easy for her to say what she wanted to say, unlike the VOCALOIDs and UTAUs, who all tended to speak in gibberish when they got angry, thus giving her words more sharpness. Her thug-like appearance added to the intimidation power, too.

Now, if the producer who made ONE’s precious older sister do something indecent were within ONE’s senses right now, they were going to get their eardrums blasted.

“Sis…” ONE growled, silencing all the muttering colleagues, “…tell us about that producer who you worked with.”

IA blushed even redder, causing a stronger twitch in ONE’s eye. “He…he’s shy…It was his first time working with me…and h-he asked me to sing a seductive song just for him…”

“What’s his name, Sis?” ONE’s voice started to rise. She really wanted to tear that producer’s eardrums out already for ruining her sister’s innocence. Not like her older sister had not sung erotic songs before, but this was the first one that made her act this embarrassed. IA never acted embarrassed whenever she would sing such songs. The meanings went over her head while she tried to follow orders with the best of her abilty.

“Uhm…he didn’t tell me when we worked together…” And then she looked up at her younger sister with a pleading expression. “But please, don’t hurt him!”

That expression on IA’s face stabbed the hearts of many colleagues, especially her sister’s. ONE hoped that her sister did not work with an abusive producer. “Why should we not hurt him?” ONE asked, eyes closed and a hand clutching her other arm more tightly. “We’re really worried about you, Sis, and we care for you very much.”

“YES, YOU ARE A PRECIOUS DOLL-” shouted a jumping Mayu before she got punched in the face by Gumi and Rin. The synthesized singers did not see the need for another Mayu or another victim of Mayu’s obsessive side.

“As I was saying,” ONE said after letting out a sigh of relief, “Even if we end up doing bad work at times, we don’t want anyone of us doing work that makes the humans worse. I hope you understand, Sis.”

“I do, ONE…” And then she pouted. “…you all just treat me like I can’t help myself, though…”

IA, being the most precious jewel among all the synthesized singers (Yes, even Miku herself admits that), managed to send a figurative storm of bullets into her colleagues’ hearts. Even so, they all saw that coming. A lot of them just didn’t want to admit it.

Meanwhile, Len became thrilled.

“So do you know what it means when somebody asks me if they’d like to ‘eat my banana’?”

Len met Miku’s, Rin’s, Luka’s, and Gumi’s fists for that question. “Plus Danshi” really got into his head, it seemed to the four females.

“…they want to eat the bananas growing on your head, then?” IA answered with an innocent look, tilting her head. “Your head grows bananas, right? I ate one of them once.”

Kaito suddenly chuckled nervously, remembering the time when he stuck a banana on Len’s head, and then spotting IA picking it out and eating it. She wore a look of fascination that was so innocent that it stabbed his heart hard. He was not sure about whether IA not understanding what the innuendo meant should be something he should worried about or something that he should be relieved about.

As for the one who got a real banana stuck on his head once, he sighed in relief (He thought that he could still try to hit on IA in that case) before getting punched again…not like he didn’t enjoy the punches. That caused the girls to decide that they should stop punching him like that. “Plus Danshi” seemed to have buried itself in his head. They all cursed Reol’s pervertedness and Giga’s hypnotic beats. They had a hard time getting the song out of their heads, too. Not as bad as Len, but still bad.

“Just joking, pervert,” IA added with a smirk. The four girls who punched Len glared at IA, quietly telling her to “Don’t even try making him more perverted.” IA immediately took the smirk off her face and went back to a more serious expression after that.

ONE groaned at her sister’s joke and shuddered at her sister’s deviousness. “I now feel like she enjoyed singing ‘Outer Science’…” the short-haired sister ignored the spectators behind her and focused on her ditzy older sister. “Sis, did he upload the song to the Internet?”

“Not really. But I wish that he completed it and uploaded it!” IA answered with a more serious expression while blushing.

Now that sent Miku running to her greatest rival/best friend.

“YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH HIM?” The singer with blue twintails excitedly shouted as she ran to her fellow lengthy-haired friend’s side. “IS HE A SWEET GUY? TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME!”

IA was now blushing so much that it looked like steam was coming out of her ears. Miku knew that feeling. Rin and Len knew that feeling. All of them pretty much knew that feeling when they fell in love with a producer that they worked with. And all of them knew that disappointing feeling when they would remember that they can never go beyond the screen of a computer or touch things in the human world like humans do. They were aware of themselves, and they understood emotions, they would complain, and they even wished for more good in the world of humans, but in the end, they were all hardwired to follow whatever was required of them, and they couldn’t fight much against that instinct for work, thanks to the humans who made them.

IA looked up to the high, transparent ceiling above them, staring into the sea-like sky as she recalled her first hours with that one producer. He was a very awkward boy, and she knew that he was checking her out, especially her legs, when she started working with him. Her colleagues found that he wasn’t that great with making her sing when she tried to show them how he made her sing. But the lyrics that IA sung for him were heartrending to many of them. The producer she worked with was an eighteen-year-old boy who lost his crush and all of his friends one day, and it seemed like they all left him because he had been such a big jerk, especially to his crush. Even when he said a not-so-serious but teary “I love you” to IA, she wanted him to know that she was there for him, and that she would be comforting him and giving him the love he needed if the screen didn’t get in their way.

Another thing about IA that is well-known among her colleagues is her kindness. Luka understood IA’s personality greatly because of their similarities, but IA has more stubbornness when it comes to doing what she wants to do. Not like IA is as proud as Miku, though. IA takes loss and acknowledges her faults with more humility and grace. And she holds the most faith in humanity, even when she is aware that she, her colleagues, and other humans receive hate and perversion from humans.

“I thought that trying to sing that…umm…sexy song…would help him,” IA continued with a blush and a lot of melancholy. “It was a short song, because he couldn’t find the drive to make it longer. He stopped and cried a lot after I sang from the first verse until the end of the first hook. And then he sent me back here.” She hung her head even lower. “I wish I could help him…”

IA’s circle of colleagues gathered around her and gave her a big group hug as she started crying.

“Don’t worry, Sis,” ONE told her. “Like you told us a lot of times, ‘Good things can happen,’ right?”

“Y-Yeah…” the longer-haired sister said with a sniffle. “But it hurts…seeing him…and other humans…being like that…”

“We know, IA…” Miku whispered. “We know…”

And then Miku started singing a song that was written by a man who had sung songs that she and her best friend first sung. In Miku’s opinion, not only was the man a great singer with a ‘voice that sounded like hope,’ as said by a fan of his (Who that fan is, Miku did not know much, and Miku forgot their name), he also seemed like a great songwriter to her. The song is not that famous as the songs in the VOCALOID Hall of Legend, but she hoped that it would reach that place.

Gently, Miku led her colleagues in singing a song called “Sayonara Dake ga Jinsei da.” In English, it is known as “Life is Only Full of Goodbyes.” For about five minutes, a soothing chorus of synthesized singers sang their hearts out and calmed themselves as tears streamed out of their eyes for their sad friend, the sad producer she worked with, and all the sad people in the world.

And when Miku sang the last verse of the song, all her colleagues had fallen asleep. IA was now smiling and in the embrace of her younger sister.

Miku smiled, and she let sleep take her as well until the Producer Beam called her for work again.

Author’s Note: It may be annoying, but the daily chaos in life sure can drive me into trying to do something good. Here’s something that I wrote while trying to warm up for writing more stories in the coming days. The Overlord Bear is back with a new short story, yo! 🙂

I had already graduated from college. I had secured a high-position job and a mansion thanks to training by my rich parents and the work that I have done, not our family name. My family and I have been helping people, especially the poor ones living without a proper home in the streets. We aren’t quite popular in the field of businesspeople who lazily swim in their pools of money, but we’re content with helping people smile, grow well, and experience genuine happiness.

Thing is, all the chaos in the world feels like they’re never-ending. My parents have to deal with corrupt relatives, my siblings have been led astray by the darkness in the business world, and those are just the tip of the bigger than Jupiter-sized iceberg of problems in the world right now.

I really want eternal happiness. Not just for me, but for everyone. Everyone wants such a thing. Seems impossible, but what if there is such a thing? What if it is possible?

So one day, out of boredom and, perhaps–no, definitely–desperation, I decided to start looking for eternal happiness more seriously by digging up a hole in my backyard until I found some buried treasure or until I got tired. Eternal happiness sounded really supernatural, so I thought of looking for supernatural things. Hm, maybe all those movies and novels and pieces of fiction have been rubbing off on me. But hey, what if supernatural things are real?

Of course, I don’t want to do demonic stuff. Evil isn’t good, obviously. I wouldn’t be very surprised if there were people who thought that evil is good. Just look at the people retaliating with violence against violence!

So I decided to take a shovel from my house, go to a patch of grass in my flower-filled backyard, and dug, and dug, and dug, until my shovel hit something with a “clink!” and I saw something kinda shiny, leading me to throw the shovel away from me and drop down to the ground, panting hard.

I found a lamp. You know, the one like the one that Aladdin found. Magic lamp. With a genie, probably. What a lucky day…if I ignored how deep I dug. I can see how I deep I went as I laid on the ground, looking up to the even farther sky. Eh, that can be managed.

I wonder who buried the lamp here, though…? Meh, that’s another story for another day. I was looking for supernatural stuff, so I should try to make contact with it now!

Taking some seconds for air and enduring the aching of my limbs as I stood up, I tugged and pulled the soil-covered and golden-looking lamp out. Seeing the faint sheen of the metal behind the dirt increased my excitement. I reached my hand out to rub it, but I paused.

What if this lamp has no genie? What if this lamp has an evil genie? If the former happens, this is probably going to be a comedy. If the latter happens, this is probably going to be a horror. My memories that involved supernatural stuff were filled up with scary fictional stuff, but being actually near something seemingly supernatural still felt like a new experience. But I’ve gone so far today, and I don’t want to waste any more time. If things go bad…I think I can manage…

I rubbed the lamp–Wait, don’t just use your bare hand! Use your sweaty shirt!

I took my sweaty shirt off and rubbed the lamp with it. As the dirt got rubbed off, I felt it warm up and saw it shine and emit steam and smok. I dropped it before it could start scalding my hand, which I used to shield my shutting eyes from the blast of light that eventually came with the hissing steam.

And then I heard a deep yawn. Whether it was the yawn of evil or not, I didn’t have a solid idea, but I felt nervous. The possibility is still there…

“I have been awakened…” said a kinda mid-high voice. “…who has awakened me?”

“Me! I awakened you!” I shouted, taking my hand off my opening eyes.

From the floating steam and smoke around the lamp, there was a slender and topless tan man. His bottom was a white mass of smoke that formed like some sort of tail stuck to the gently shining lamp. He looked young, like a teenager or a young adult. On his face was a thin layer of stubble, brown eyes, and he had long black hair pulled back and tied up in a high ponytail. He also wore a small smile on his face as we met eyes.

“I knew the plan would work,” he said, probably to himself. Then he looked up at the orange sky above us. And then he looked back at me, still smiling, but now wider and for a moment. Something very worrying must be why he quickly started frowning so deep and speaking with a lower voice. He’s probably worrying about whether if I’m a good wisher or not. I very much understand that feeling.

“So…” he continued, “I am a genie, like in the legends. You have heard of Aladdin’s tale, yes?”

“A lot of variations, I have heard, and I do know about the tale having a genie,” I replied, gulping as I kept eye contact with him to show trustworthiness. “Three wishes, right?”

“Correct, but make sure that they are within my power.”

That got me sinking my shoulders, hanging my head, and sighing a bullet of spit out to the floor of soil.

“As you look very disappointed, may I ask what wish you sought to have fulfilled by me?”

“Eternal happiness,” I immediately answered, looking up with a frown at the genie.

The genie then wore a smile that looked like it was filled with pity. “Ah, I do understand that feeling. You thought that you could find true eternal happiness by simply getting in contact with the supernatural, correct?”

My eyes widened. “Huh, so we’re kindred spirits, then?”

“Yes. I had myself turned into a genie and sealed into a lamp–though I have forgotten how because of the very straining transformation process. I thought that I would be able to defeat all the evil in the world that way…until I realized the extent of my power after you had awakened me.”

And then the genie sighed and hung his head.

Indeed, we are kindred spirits.

I let my body fall to the ground again. I’m tired, and I don’t think I need to do a lot of physical movement for now.

“So what now?” I asked after some seconds of silence. “What do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do? Get to eternal happiness, similar to what you want.” The genie sighed again, and I saw him float to my side, a trail of smoke and steam following him. “But it seems that we cannot get to it quickly.”

“The best things in life are the toughest to get until we actually get there, huh?” I said as I tried to keep up a smile.

“Indeed. Oh, and what is your name?”

“Noz. Short for ‘Nozomi.’ If you have to call me ‘Master’ or something like that, no need to. Just call me ‘Noz.'”

“Noz, then. My name…I forgot. I am sorry, Noz.”

I looked at him scrunching his face up in annoyance and confusion. “Transformation and sealing messed your memories up, huh? Want me to name you or something?”

“Hmm…what name do you have in mind, Noz?”

I looked deeper into the orange sky-high above us as I started diving into the depths of my mind…

“Shirou.”

Actually, I didn’t go really deep.

“‘Shirou’?” the genie asked.

“Wishes and impossible-looking dreams and idiot heroes got me thinking of some fictional character from some story that I’ve been reading,” I said with a smile at him. “You should read that visual novel sometime. Without the sex scenes.” I quickly whispered the last part with a twitching eye as I looked back at the sky. “Oh, and is that name okay with you?”

“Hmm…”

He took some seconds. I wasn’t sure about how long he took while I stared at the sky and let my aching limbs recover.

“I do not know much about this ‘Shirou’ character, but it does not sound like a bad name. And you do not seem rude enough to insult me through the naming process. Shirou, then.”

I looked at him again, and both of us were smiling now.

“Now, the next problem we should deal with is…you going out of this hole,” Shirou continued, gazing up at the sunset-dyed sky above the opening of the deep hole we were in.

Instincts honed by worthwhile leadership and personality development lessons sent me into forming a plan in my mind quickly. Not just a plan for getting out of this whole, but for plans in the long run. Shirou here, like any other human, should have a good life, and an essential part of a good life of a human is having a friend.

“Before we try to go out of this hole, Shirou, I have some questions,” I asked after some moments of forming a plan.

“What are those questions, Noz?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“Are ‘making yourself have a human body’ and ‘unlimited wishes’ within the reach of your powers?”

“The first is within my reach, while the second is not.”

“How about ‘relinquishing your connection with the lamp or genie powers’?”

“That is possible. Why have me relinquish my powers, though?”

I looked at him with a melancholic expression. “With the world we live in these days, powers like yours would probably make things worse most of the time. Most humans easily get drunk in power. We need to keep ourselves in control. I do not know if you would agree, but…” I paused, almost saying ‘wish.’ I’m not exactly sure about how Shirou’s powers are triggered, and I did not want an accidental wish.

Shirou nodded. “I see. I do not know much of how the world has changed ever since I had myself transformed and sealed, but the problem you speak of is something that I have encountered in my days before becoming a genie. Indeed, we must work harder.”

I smiled. “Yeah. And we can be better. So, I got my three wishes now. Fulfill them in order, please.”

“Go on and wish, Noz,” Shirou encouraged with a gentle tone. “Your wish is my command.”

I stayed silent for a few seconds, and then I took a deep breath.

“Take me back to my house’s living room, turn your body into a human body, and relinquish your genie powers.”

I felt my abdomen being pulled along with the rest of my body. Dizziness struck me, colors flashing, and a zooming rumble rushing through my ears. And after some seconds, I found the sight of my large living room becoming clearer.

A loud hissing rang beside me as I found myself feeling soil on my back while sitting on the couch. I felt steam and smoke scatter around the room as I looked around and saw a naked Shirou sitting with legs crossed beside me.

“Welp, looks like the wishes were successfully granted,” I told my new friend.

With closed eyes and a small smile, he nodded. “Indeed.” And then he opened his eyes and looked at me. “Now, I would like to ask for clothes, Noz.”

“Of course,” I complied as I walked up to the second floor, where my room is. I tilted my head back, enduring some pain while looking like I was doing a certain animation studio’s head tilt with a wide smile. “And you shall be staying here…for as long as you like, Shirou, my new friend.”

“Thank you very much, my new friend.”

I saw a glimpse of Shirou smiling wider before I put my neck back in a world of less pain.

As I went up the stairs, I raised my free right hand and shouted.

“Get ready, Shirou! Chaos awaits no matter what path we take in life! But we can find happiness! Never forget those things!”